Digital Hygiene for Law Enforcement and First Responders
A practical OPSEC brief for reducing doxxing exposure, protecting family information, hardening accounts, and responding when personal information is published online.
Read the briefChoose Your Path
Technology & Innovation
Emerging tools, unintended consequences, digital exposure, and how technology changes security and decision-making.
Start with what is newest→Go deeper where useful→Carry something forward
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The newest item on this path.
Briefing work
At the briefing table
Current assessments and intelligence-style work connected to this subject.
10 Warnings Buried in Congress’s New 9/11 Report
Twenty-five years after 9/11, the House Intelligence Committee reviewed what the U.S. fixed, what remains unfinished, and where new intelligence gaps may be forming. These are…
Read briefWashington Is Coming Back
The House is back after the August recess, the Senate returns for regular business September 14, and Washington is beginning to move again. The useful things…
Read briefOperation Tidal Wave
Operation Tidal Wave was not simply a cruise ship scandal. It was a clear example of how modern digital exploitation investigations are now conducted: quietly, internationally,…
Read briefChinese Intrusion into an FBI Surveillance Metadata System
Recent reporting indicates that suspicious activity was detected within a system connected to surveillance metadata used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Investigators believe the intrusion…
Read briefThe Underrated Threat: When a Resume Becomes a Weapon
For two decades, Western cybersecurity strategy focused on infrastructure. We hardened networks, segmented environments, deployed detection systems, and institutionalized zero trust frameworks. And it worked to…
Read briefBlind Vetting: The Truth About Afghanistan’s Incomplete and Compromised Biometrics
An examination of gaps in Afghan biometric data, the consequences for post-2021 vetting, and the risks created when identity systems are incomplete or compromised.
Read briefModern Exploitation in the Digital Age
Over the past decade, the battleground of child sexual exploitation has shifted from physical trafficking routes to digital terrain. Smartphones, encrypted messaging apps, and anonymous payment…
Read briefThe Myth of the Uneducated Terrorist: How Professional Skills Enable Operations in the West
The stereotype that terrorists are poor, uneducated, and socially marginalized is not only inaccurate—it’s dangerous. Time and again, investigations reveal that many extremist operatives are highly…
Read briefThe Pen That Could Kill: A Missed Warning from 2019
A Watch Floor brief examining a low-signature threat uncovered in Turkey in 2019 and the broader challenge of recognizing emerging terrorist technologies before they become familiar.
Read briefOutside publications
Published elsewhere
Magazine, journal, and outside publication work that belongs on this path.
The Next School Shooter May Have A Secret Assistant
Artificial intelligence is beginning to appear in school attacks and disrupted plots involving young people. The question is when scattered online behavior becomes a warning pattern…
Read articleNo Place to Hide: Warfare in the Age of Persistent Observation
What Ukraine is revealing about observation, concealment, adaptation, and the assumptions shaping the next war.
Read articleThe Commons
Put it to work
Practical guidance from The Commons for turning lessons into capability.
Hidden Communications Terrorists Use
A recognition brief on coded language, metadata, steganography, obfuscated text, and ordinary digital platforms that can be abused for clandestine communication.
Read the briefInformation in the Fog
How to verify urgent information, avoid spreading rumors, recognize manipulated content, and rely on trusted local sources.
Read the briefA Community That Can Still Communicate
How neighborhoods, local organizations, public safety, and trained amateur-radio operators can build and test a simple communications tree.
Read the briefDigital Hygiene for Americans Overseas
A practical guide to location data, app permissions, device separation, connectivity, metadata, and the habits that reduce unnecessary exposure while traveling.
Read on the siteUber & Lyft Hacking
Rideshare fraud can begin with a stolen account, a hijacked phone number, or someone trying to move a rider outside the app. The safest response is…
Read the briefWhen Your Apps Turn Against You: Digital Hygiene for Americans Overseas
Consumer apps can expose more than a location. Over time, routine check-ins, fitness data, photos, rides, social posts, and account metadata can reveal patterns about where…
Read the briefBooks & enduring work
From the shelves
Books, collaborations, and other enduring material that helps round out the subject.
House of Huawei
Eva Dou traces how technology, industrial strategy, state power, intelligence collection, and one company became intertwined in geopolitical competition.
View bookThe Troubled American Way of War
John Arquilla examines American military strategy from Hiroshima through the age of algorithms, including the growing role of information, computation, and AI.
View bookCode War
Allie Mellen examines how nation-state cyber operations function as instruments of power and how geopolitics shapes the digital battlefield.
View bookKeep the thread
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